


The House-Elf Dilemma

by OldSwinburne



Category: Faerie Folklore, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Fluff, Folklore, Literary References & Allusions, Multiple Crossovers, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26712235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldSwinburne/pseuds/OldSwinburne
Summary: When Harry decides to stand by Hermione in her attempts at House-Elf emancipation, it changes everything between the two, and something new blossoms.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 4
Kudos: 67





	The House-Elf Dilemma

“I’ve always hated marmalade,” said Harry, chewing his toast. “It’s always been far too bitter for me.”

Hermione snagged a slice from his plate. “More fool you, Potter. Marmalade beats raspberry jam into a cocked hat.”

Ron did not voice an opinion, trying as he was to stuff toast with both types of spread into his mouth simultaneously.

They were in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, squabbling over breakfast in their usual way. The Durmstrang students had taken over a portion of the Slytherin table, while the Beauxbatons contingent, being slightly friendlier, had dispersed themselves throughout the rest of the room. One of these French students, Wilma Vandom, gave the squabbling trio a strange look.

“Now, everyone, to work,” said Hermione, sweeping the toast aside with a smooth gesture, and placing a pile of leather-bound books and loose leaves of paper on the table. At the impact, a thick cloud of dust rose up, causing Seamus Finnigan, sitting nearby, to choke.

Ron, busy thumping Seamus on the back, looked up, wide-eyed. “Work?” There was a moment of sheer panic, which slowly dissolved into confusion- Ron’s two favourite facial expressions. “I already did the charm’s essay, and that thing for Snape is due next week.”

“Oh, no, this isn’t for _school,_ ” said Hermione, rolling her eyes. “This is extra-curricular. This is for S.P.E.W.”

“Spew?” said Ron. “That’s that House-Elf thing you made up, right?”

“Yes, and it’s pronounced ‘S.P.E.W.’”

“I said spew!”

“No you didn’t,” said Hermione. “I can tell. It’s an acronym, not a verb.”

“What work did you have in mind, Hermione?” asked Harry cautiously, ever the peacemaker. “I thought that you had already given us jobs the other week.”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “We already asked people to join our club; what else can we do?”

“This isn’t a _club_ !” Hermione hissed. “This is a _crusade!_ This is something that will take a lifetime, not a _month!”_

Harry and Ron looked profoundly guilty.

“Really,” said Hermione, in her prissiest schoolma’am voice. “You didn’t think you could be the treasurer and secretary of S.P.E.W. and not do work, did you?”

The guilting intensified. 

“Ron, I don’t think you even know the _meaning_ of the word suffrage!”

“That’s that thing in food that’s good for you, right?”

“And I might have expected better from _you,_ Harry James Potter--”

Harry winced; this was a three name situation, and they were never good. “I’m sorry, Hermione, I just don’t quite understand what we need to do. The House-Elves are happy, aren’t they? Dobby and the rest?”

“Well, if you don’t _understand,_ Harry, then I rather think S.P.E.W. doesn’t need your presence,” said Hermione, a frizzy ball of hormones and self-righteousness. She stormed off, leaving her half-eaten breakfast behind her. A stir of student susurration began at her exit, the Hogwarts rumour mill already beginning to concoct outlandish explanations.

“Just leave her alone, Harry,” said Ron, who was used to Hermione storming off from him. “She’ll cool down.”

But Harry didn’t want to leave Hermione alone. The sight of her storming off from him, the edge of tears in her voice, pained him like few things did. There was something wrong about this situation, and, without even realising it, he was out of his seat and after her, ignoring Ron’s calls from behind him. 

For most of his life, Harry had railed against authority. The adult world to him was an unflinching grey mess, a status quo that could not be broken. When he was with the Dursleys, Vernon and Petunia had been these figures impossible to combat, able to control and change his life at a whim. On one occasion, Harry had told his primary school art teachers, Miss Mather, about his uncle and aunt, but she didn’t believe him. He was sent to detention for spreading lies, so forceful was his Privet Drive reputation. He would look out from the other rooms, watching the Dursleys eat together happily as a family- Dudley with a mountain of sweets in front of him- and _yearn,_ yearn for a place at the table or an appearance in the family photos or anything. His faith in justice and society died in a little cupboard under the stairs. 

But when he looked at Hermione, lit up with a righteous indignation, something kindled in the embers of his heart. Hermione had _faith._ She believed that things could change, that injustice could be defeated, that one day she could live in a perfect world. Harry wanted that with a desperation that was almost painful. 

He wondered, suddenly, if that was what House-Elves felt, that constant desire to fit in, being forced into making the dinner and sleeping in a sackcloth in the cupboard under the stairs. If they wanted change, as well, but had been beaten down by centuries of ignorance and apathy.

He found Hermione on the third floor corridor, by the painting of Mother Rigby. He grabbed her arm as she started away, her face flushed with anger.

“Hermione---”

“ _Harry.”_

“Hermione, I’m sorry. I just-- I just don’t understand it as much as you do. But I _want_ to, I want to help. I don’t know, I just---” and here his voice choked up under the weight of what he couldn’t say, “---I want to with _you,_ Hermione. Please. Let me in.”

Hermione turned to stare at Harry, deep into his eyes, and not for the first time, he wondered if she was finding something that he was not aware of. Some secret hidden within him, that only she with her gimlet gaze could discern. Then, suddenly, she relented, letting out a huff of something adjacent to amusement.

“Fine, Harry. Apology accepted.”

Hermione gave Harry a small smile, which Harry returned with interest. Then, Hermione’s smile sharpened, into the mischievous set it only occasionally gained.

“It was a terrible apology, though, Harry. Poor, if not a Dreadful. It’s something you really need to work on.”

As the flow of their conversation resumed, and they headed, by mutual agreement, to the library to begin researching, something eased in Harry’s heart. Right now, reading about his best friend’s latest interest in the library sounded a fine way to spend his time. For some reason (and a reason he was not yet willing to acknowledge), there was currently nothing he’d rather than be than in the library with Hermione.

For a few hours, at least.

* * *

“It’s three in the morning, Hermione,” said Harry. The book he was reading- a moth-eaten tome called ‘ _An Examination of House-Spirits’_ by D. Renswoude _-_ was proving increasingly illegible. He had been reading the same line multiple times in a row.

“Three in the morning is the most productive time to be,” said Hermione, eyes manic and hair frizzier than ever. Harry had noticed that Hermione’s hair changed depending on her levels of stress. Normally her hair was sleek and pushed back in a neat ponytail, but when she was on the warpath, as she was then, it projected off to the sides like a curly brown halo.

Harry tried to close his eyes, but found he couldn’t- they were burning with a need for sleep. The library seemed hazy, the warm glow of the candle a vague beacon beating back the dark. He could tell he was going to be completely useless tomorrow. Or today, rather. He wanted to ask Dobby for a coffee, and immediately castigated himself as a class traitor for the thought. Hermione was still pouring over the books. There was a tall stack of volumes next to her, rapidly growing larger as she added discarded books to it with dizzying speed. Her eyes weren’t bloodshot- not yet- but there was a slight tremble and the beginnings of a shiny redness to them.

“Have you found anything, Harry?” said Hermione, not unkindly, but with a consciousness of Harry’s half a page of doodles. Harry had been writing with no real awareness of its contents, his hand making a crab-like signature on its own.

The coffee in the kitchens beckoned.

“I haven’t found anything,” said Harry, choosing his words like a man bargaining with the Fair Folk. “Now, listen---”

“Yes?”

“I think we need a break, Hermione. What do you say we head down to the kitchens?” He could practically taste the coffee beans.

Hermione lit up like a catherine wheel. “That’s a great idea, Harry! We can interview the House Elves about their feelings about this atrocity, these hideous acts of slavery.”

Harry thought about explaining his intentions, but decided to go with the flow. The books were speedily packed away, and a quick unveiling of his Invisibility Cloak allowed the two to make their way down to the Kitchens with impressive haste. At one point, they had to hastily avoid Filch and his cat (“I can hear young students out of dorms after dark!”) but they made it safely to the Hufflepuff basement, tickled the pear in the portrait, and were quickly installed into the kitchens.

Soon, Harry and Hermione were perched nervously on the wooden stools, looking outward at the sea of bulbous eyes and bat-like ears. The kitchen was large, but the equipment and utensils were small and elf-sized. A large cast-iron kitchen range stood at one wall, metallic jelly moulds and glass bowls full of creamy mixtures scattered around the table. Hermione opened one of the several folders she had upon her knee, while Harry leant back, a quill tucked behind his right ear. 

“So,” said Hermione, eyes bright, “we have a few questions we’d like you to answer, if you would.”

There was a chorus of murmurs as the Elves settled, happy to be given a task.

“Now, how much work a day would you say that you do?”

It was Dobby who spoke up first, the de facto spokesman on House Elf rights.

“We wake up at five o’clock, and begin cooking. We make the breakfast, lunch, dinner, elevenses, second lunch, supper, and any snacks the students need during the day! We clean the dormitories, the classrooms, the---”

“--The students’ beds--,” Winky murmured, staring blankly out in the distance with tear-stained eyes, clutching a bottle of whisky in one hand.

“--The students’ beds, yes, thank you Winky, and then we move any trunks and baggage to and from the rooms, if that is necessary. And then, we have to take the money Headmaster Dumbledore gives us and put it in a special place!”

Harry and Hermione froze, somewhat alarmed by this unusual 

“Dobby,” said Harry, crouching down next to the House-Elf, choosing his words carefully. “Can I ask you a very important question?”

Dobby looked at Harry, and for a moment something intelligent flickered in those orb-like eyes. “Of course, Harry Potter, sir. Dobby will talk about anything Harry Potter wants to talk about.”

“Dobby,” asked Harry, a sinking feeling in his gut. “What do you spend the money on?”

“Sir?”

“The money, Dobby,” said Hermione, taking up Harry’s line of questioning. “Five galleons a week. What do you do with it?”

“Ah! Dobby be showing Mister Harry Potter’s Miss Grangy!” said Dobby, and with that, he vanished with a loud crack. He was back a moment later with a large velvet-lined box, about the size of a small doll’s house. Hermione half-tilted her head, bird-like, in curiosity as Dobby opened the box. It was lined in gold, the galleons that Dobby had been payed having been attached to the sides. In the centre, lit by reflected light, was a single sock. 

“What’s that, Dobby?” asked Harry, at something of a loss.

“It is what I have been doing with my money, Harry Potter,” said Dobby, grinning widely. “The gold is very shiny and it helps my treasure-box look even better.”

Harry was suddenly reminded of a magpie, lining its nest with shiny trinkets with no regard of its material worth. What use did a magpie have for gold?

“We’ve gone about this in entirely the wrong way,” muttered Hermione blankly to herself. To the House-Elves, she spoke up. “Do you actually use money, then?”

There was a chorus of dissent, with some of the younger House-Elves at the back- a trio named Hop, Skip and Jump- at the back openly laughing.

“We have been around since before your nasty money,” said one of the Elves, a small little thing perched on a cooking pot. “We leave that for the goblins.”

A group of the House-Elves chorused out in gleeful little cries, “Merodach! Merodach!”

Merodach, it seemed, was the _de facto_ leader of the Hogwarts House Elves. He lifted himself upon his spindly arms, rags hanging loosely from his body.

“We don’t live by your rules, wizard. We don’t trade goods for tiny pieces of lifeless metal. What good will they do? We are creatures of the hearth, of the home. We were born before the first man came to lord himself over some peasants, and we will be here when the whole system turns to dust. So, no, we don’t want to be paid. We do a sacred task; do not sully it with hollow gold.”

* * *

“No, Hermione, I don’t think Binns will accept ‘House-Elves as survivors of pre-Capitalist society’ as an extra credit essay,” said Harry. Hermione pouted. 

It was the next day, and the two of them were sitting at the breakfast table. After their nocturnal interview with the House Elves, Hermione had not been able to sleep, alive with the excitement of research. Harry had stayed up with her, and so the new day had greeted a somewhat wary and exhausted pair of students.

“It shows, though, how different different magical creatures are,” said Hermione, gripping Harry’s arm. “We are approaching them with an entire set of cultural assumptions that we simply have to unlearn!”

Harry’s head had been slowly dipping into his porridge, so tired was he from the night’s peregrinations. He dragged himself back to wakefulness, however, when a Bulgarian-accented voice emerged from his periphery. “You are talking about Elves, yes?”

It was Viktor Krum, the seeker of the Bulgarian Quidditch Team. To Harry’s sleep-addled state, he looked like a large grumpy bear.

Hermione gasped. “You know about House-Elves?”

She looked up at Krum, taking her hands off Harry’s arm. Harry suddenly found himself profoundly irritated by the Quidditch player’s first growths of wispy moustache.

“Yes,” said Krum. “In my country, we call them _Domovoy._ They clean the home when the womenfolk are away. In return for the sacrifice of a cockerel and the sprinkling of its blood around the household, they will keep you safe from harm.”

Hermione looked rather green, and gripped Harry’s arm again (something he was rather smug about).

“Fascinating,” she said, in a voice that implied it was anything but.

“Ignore him,” said a Durmstrang girl, laughing as she approached. “Krum gets in these moods. He’s a real softy, most of the time.”

Krum looked distinctly sour. The girl laughed gaily, and proffered a hand for Harry to take.

“Fima Ostroumova,” she said. “At your service.”

Fima Ostroumova, it seemed, was the resident Durmstrang expert on these House-Elves. She talked of the _Domovoy_ of the Northern wastes, and how they were trapped in the thrall of a mad shaman who gifted presents to children.

“Wait,” said Harry. “That sounds familiar, somehow.”

“Let me guess, muggle myths? Half of our register comes from some half-forgotten fairy tale. Look at Rüdiger von Schlotterstein over there.”

She pointed past Neville Longbottom (in the middle of one of his stress-induced nosebleeds) to a pale-faced youth with sunken eyes and an explosion of shaggy hair. 

“I didn’t realise there were Durmstrang first years,” said Ron.

The student looked on the wrong side of eleven, gazing around him with wide eyes. The enchanted ceiling, depicting the warm sunny day outside, seemed to give him pause, and, as Harry looked, he started to flinch away from it. There was movement from up the table as Rüdiger pushed a cup towards Neville, who still had a tissue clamped to his nose.

“Do you mind?” he asked, nodding at the blood-stained napkin. “Just giving me a refill?”

Hermione gasped, and, a few seconds later, the tumblers clicked together in Harry’s mind. Sudden details made sense- the cool skin, the aversion to the sun-lit ceiling, the interest in blood. Rüdiger von Schlotterstein was a _vampire._ And one who, according to his long, high-pitched diatribe, was actually over one hundred and fifty.

“But if you’re hundreds of years old, why do you still go to school?” asked Hermione to the perpetually pre-pubescent vampire.

“Have you seen the job market lately?” asked Rüdiger. “Better to stick to things you know. And it’s hard to apply for bar work when you look younger than your clientele.”

As it turned out, a lot of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang contingents were differently human, to borrow a phrase Hermione had floated during one of their midnight discussions. Certainly, they had more magical creatures than the Hogwarts contingent. Fleur Delacour introduced herself as a quarter-veela, while her friend Mélusine professor herself to be a centuries-old shape shifting water spirit. Other students- Cancrelune, Wilma Vandon, Tara Duncan- seemed more normal, although Harry’s eyes were drawn to a Russian student, Tanya Grotter, whom a loose-lipped Fima assured him was a homunculus.

“They’re made to resemble celebrities and historical figures,” said Fima. “Not an exact replica, but there’s enough there if you know what you’re looking for. It’s like when you write a message on a piece of paper and an impression appears on the pad beneath. What’s that called? Ah yes, _palimpsest.”_

Harry looked at the Russian homunculus, who had mane of long red hair- not unlike his mother’s- and a strange lightning-shaped birthmark on her nose. He didn’t have to think long to find what celebrity Tanya Grotter had been based on.

“Is she… sentient, then?” asked Hermione.

“Why not?” Fima reasoned. “Magic made her for a purpose, it’s true, but why should not make her a living being? She is not too dissimilar to your House-Elves in that respect. Both she and them were put on this earth for a purpose.”

It was not, Harry decided, a subject he liked to think about.

The mention of House-Elves had gained the attention of a cross-section of the Great Hall’s contents, however, and soon there was a cluster of faces in passionate discussion around Harry and Hermione. Soon the students from other schools came forward to share their cultural House-Elf equivalents; Oliver Wood, who was Scottish, talked about how he saw a childhood brownie who did the sweeping up in exchange for a bowl of cream. The Northumbrian Terry Boot talked about the Hob who curved his dad’s whooping cough. Bibi Blocksberg, a German girl with blonde hair tied back with a red bow, talked about the _Heinzelmännchen,_ a species of gnome-like creatures unique to her city of Cologne. Beauxbatons student Tara Duncan talked about a nineteenth century German shoemaker who ran a business with the help of three House-Elves, while Hogwarts student Timothy Hunter recounted how a platoon of rogue Elves sabotaged RAF planes during World War II (“They were last seen in America in ‘84, from what I hear”). The impromptu meeting concluded with lots of new additions to the S.P.E.W. membersheet, and lots of cries of “something must be done!”, but Harry felt something uncertain settle into him.

“Hermione,” said Harry, struggling, as ever, to articulate his feelings. “Is it our place to say this?”

“What? Harry, I swear to Merlin, if this is another way to get out of this…”

“No, no, I’m invested. I’m just saying, isn’t it a bit awkward, that we are the ‘saviours’ of these house elves? Shouldn’t they be the ones to say what they want? Why are we imposing our own views of their desires onto them? It’s a bit ‘white man’s burden’, isn’t it?”

Hermione, to her credit, seemed to take this into consideration. She was silent for a moment, then turned to look back at Harry. “But we have, haven’t we? I mean, we’ve talked to the Elves themselves, and even to foreign students. I suppose I could write to some experts in the Ministry. I’ve heard of a Miss Device who is very close to some leaders of the Elf community.”

She stood up from the table, and grabbed Harry to pull along.

“I suppose you’re right, though, and we do need more research. Come on, Potter, to the library!”

And as they returned to their research, both students were aware that they were holding hands, but neither chose to bring the subject up.

For a while, things were pleasant for Harry and Hermione. Not peaceful- there were a few too many late nights for that, and sometimes a hole in their research felt like they were banging their heads against the wall. But it was nice, spending time just the two of them. Ron would often beg off from these research activities, pleading a bad stomach or some other equally terrible excuse. It was just Harry and Hermione a lot of the time, interviewing foreign students or the House Elves of the kitchen, and reading old tomes of forgotten lore. At times, Hermione would look at Harry, at his untidy mop of hair and his bright green eyes, and feel something warm fluttering inside her. And sometimes Harry would look at Hermione and her prim posture and bright smile, and feel something he couldn’t name.

Harry couldn’t articulate things as well as Hermione. She had a word for everything, able to string sentences together out of thin air, like a muggle magician with a row of handkerchiefs. She could accurately detail what you were feeling, examining it with a laser-sharp precision, applying the same skill that kept her at the top of her class in essay-writing to emotional intelligence. Harry admired her for it. Himself, the words wouldn’t come; they kept getting choked in his mouth. How many times had a question about his well-being been returned with a non-committal “I’m fine”? Words that had a wealth of meaning for others rang hollow for him, collections of letters and syllables that might as well have been in a foreign language. “Home”. “Family”. “Love”. He ached to pour it all out to her, to lay the tangled mess of emotional thorns that burned inside him out to her, and have it all make sense. But he couldn’t do it, not this time. The tangle all had to do with her. A light-headedness when she beamed at him after learning something new. A swooping in the stomach when she turned up, clad in a woollen hat and scarf, at one of his Quidditch training sessions. A curl of fire at the ink-smudges that often adorned her fingers after another evening’s essay-writing. Harry could dimly feel that he was on the brink of something very very large and very very frightening, a vast chasm that, if he was not careful, could swallow him whole. 

But the rhythm of research was satisfying, even if Harry did sometimes wish for more. And if Hermione spent some time in bed thinking girlishly of her raven-haired friend, well, that was nobody’s business but her own. And so both of them longed, and wished, but didn’t say anything. They were happy to sit together and research this topic that they were both so passionate about, occasionally taking covert glances at each other. They had never spent so much time together, and for two children who had grown up friendless, they had never been so happy.

Of course, Harry should have known better to think that his happiness would last Hallowe’en.

When his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, Harry felt the world drop out from under him. Part of it was the dread that the whole school would turn on him _again,_ but a large portion of it was fear that Hermione would leave him. He didn’t care about the one thousand galleon prize. But nothing could compare to his feelings the morning after the Goblet, when Hermione approached him by the Great Lake with a stack of toast and a small pot of raspberry jam.

“Come on, Harry,” said Hermione, grinning shyly. “Surviving this tournament is just another thing to add to the list.”

Working out the First Task took precedence over House-Elf business, so that part fell by the wayside somewhat. All Hermione could do was send a letter to the one MInistry expert on House-Elves that she had been able to find, in hope of putting to bed some questions she had. Frankly, in the near-constant panic of _Keep-Harry-Alive,_ she had forgotten the letter- that is, until two weeks later, when she received a reply.

THe letter was signed with a pragmatic ‘Miss Device’, and extended an invitation for both Harry and Hermione to visit her. Harry, surprisingly enough, was eager for a distraction from the Tournament, and so this came as a welcome relief. Professor McGonagall seemed to agree, as a meeting with a cautious and stuttering Hermione- always one of her favourite students- soon led to the three of them at the gates of Hogwarts ready to go and see the expert. 

The House-Elf expert, as it turned out, lived in a cosy rose-lined cottage in the little Oxfordshire village of Tadfield. McGonagall guided the two students towards the small building, leading them straight to the door. The gate, tellingly, was unlocked.

“Come in, come in,” said a friendly voice. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Miss Device looked like the platonic ideal of a witch, dressing in a crocheted tartan jacket with pockets bulging with occult artefacts. Lace collars peeked out from her sleeves; her horn-rimmed glasses were almost the exact same shape as Harry’s, making him wonder guiltily whether he had inadvertently started a fashion trend.

“Miss Device,” said Hermione, making a neat curtsy. “We have some questions for you. I’ve been told that you are the resident expert on House Elves in the Ministry.”

“Of course, Miss Granger, Mr Potter, Minerva. Please, call me Anathema. Miss Device died at the Pendle witch trials in 1612.”

The two Hogwarts students were discomfited at this, but McGonagall, shockingly, just rolled her eyes.

“Anathema has a long family history,” she said, moving further into the cottage. “But perhaps this can be settled over tea?”

The tea was, in fact, already made. Harry sat down and took a sip, slightly discomfited to find that it was just how he liked it. He looked over at Hermione, who was frowning at the crumpets in the centre of the table; raspberry jam for Harry, marmalade for Hermione.

“Do you know Miss Device, Professor?” asked Hermione.

“Anathema was one of Filius’ eagles,” said McGonagall, primly. “She always knew a lot of things she shouldn’t. Caused a lot of trouble for the staff, she did. She would hand in the exam papers completely filled in the day before it was set to take place. That sent poor Trelawney into hysterics.”

Anathema lifted a cup of tea to her lips, smiling mischievously. McGonagall leant in close to Harry and Hermione, voice lowering confidentially. 

“One of her ancestors was a prophet, you see, and she left a book full of predictions for Anathema. Why, only a few years ago---”

“We all have different gifts from our forebears, some better than others,” interrupted Anathema. “Written any poetry recently, Minerva?”

To Harry’s shock, Professor McGonagall turned whiter than he had ever seen her, and settled back, muttering imprecations in a Scottish brogue under her breath. It was left to Hermione to pick up the conversational slack.”

“We have come to ask about House-Elves, Miss Device,” said Hermione, pulling an improbably large pile of notes out from somewhere. “We were wondering if you could tell us something about their society.”

“Particularly any concerns they had about, ehm, suffrage. Or emancipation,” said Harry, nervously flashing a S.P.E.W. badge.

Anathema placed her tea neatly back in its cup, and fixed both students with a beady gaze. From one of her many pockets she pulled out a pack of cards and began shuffling them, all while maintaining eye contact.

“What do you know of the Courts of the Fair Folk?” asked Anathema, taking the first three cards of the deck and placing them face down on the table. 

McGonagall sniffed. “That is not the sort of thing we have on the Hogwarts curriculum.”

Hermione spoke up, as ever dismissive of the restrictions imposed by her education. “The Fair Folk were separated into different categories by Dr Xavier Wycherley in 1906, these being the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. The Seelie are the ones that are benevolent; the Unseelie are marked for their evil and dangerous temperaments.” 

“An exact quote, well remembered,” said Anathema. “Straight from.... ‘ _An Account of Elves and Other Creatures’_ by Doctor James Livingstone, yes? It’s a textbook answer, and therefore almost entirely wrong.”

Harry spat out some of his tea in surprise. Hermione, prickly and a little wrong-footed, managed a monosyllabic ‘Oh?”, followed by a “Can you elucidate?”

There was a pase, then Anathema smiled. “Are you sitting comfortably?” she said, turning over the leftmost card. “Then we’ll begin.”

The card was one of what Hermione had recognised as the Major Arcana of the Tarot; the picture on it was of a figure, clad in vaguely Graeco-Roman robes, holding a wand-like baton aloft. On the table next to him (or was it her?) was a sword, a goblet, and a small pile of coins; above their head an infinity sign made a sideways figure of eight in the air.

“The first card in the Tarot deck is the Magician, capable of mystery and deception. For the time being, we shall let them stand for the Seelie Court, or the trooping fairies as they are sometimes known. You describe them as benevolent, but applying human standards of morals- or age, or even gender for that matter- is an exercise of futility. In truth, the Seelie court is only seen as good because you can talk to them, and can even bargain with them if you are foolhardy enough. That’s not something you can do with the Unseelie Court.”

She turned over the card furthest to the right, and there was the High Priestess, an ethereal figure with a blank, unknowing expression. She (or was it he?) had long flowing robes and a strange azure crown, and behind her was a temple filled with exotic and magical flowers.

“The second Tarot card, then, is the High Priestess, the one with the crescent moon at her feet and the full moon in her crown. She represents mystery and the future; let her be the Unseelie Court, the solitary fairies whose goals and aims we have no way of knowing. I highly doubt you will ever meet a member of this court, but if you ever do, I pray for you.”

She turned over the last card to reveal a figure clad all in rags, wispy feathers sticking out of his hair. Something about his pointed nose and narrow eyes reminded Harry not a little of Dobby.

“And so we have the Fool. He has no number; he exists before, after, and alongside the other cards. A figure outside of society, and yet serving it. That, at least, is the best representation of a House-Elf I have been able to find. The idea that the Ministry created these categories is a myth. These Courts have been around before the Ministry was a circle of rocks by the fireside. It was before Merlin, and probably before Circe too.”

Anathema leaned back, and the strange tension that had held the room in its grasp lessened. Harry let out a breath that he had not realised he had been holding.

“That’s the theory, anyway,” said Anathema, eyes glittering. “How would you like to put that into practise? To meet--” and here she tapped the grinning paper face of the Fool, “---the leader of the House-Elf Court?”

Hermione gasped. “He is real?” she said, leaning forward, enraptured. “He’s not just a legend? What is his name?” 

Anathema tutted. “His name? His name has been lost to the sands of time, but even if I knew it, I wouldn’t tell you. You don’t ask an Elf their name- not their True Name, at any rate. I can tell you what he is called, however. He is _called_ Owd Hob, and he resides in the Boggle Hole.”

The Boggle Hole, as it turned out, was a hollowed-out cliff face at Monkshaven, somewhere that was several hours by car but only scant seconds away by apparition. A cracking sound accompanied Harry, Hermione, Anathema and McGonagall’s appearance at the Bay, and Harry found himself looking somewhat askance at the intimidating cave. 

The leader of the House-Elves was inside, and the two Hogwarts students were surprised to see such a variety of different figures making themselves at home amongst the cave. An elf who introduced himself as Big-Ears was bearded with a pointed red cap, looking for all the world like a garden gnome- he even had the slightly glossy sheen as if he had been constructed from clay. Thimbletack was the opposite, a gruesome goblin-like creature with slavering jowls and a crazed look in his eye. The only female House-Elf, dressed in a prim uniform of scraps of faded fabric with embroidered flowers, was Meg Mullach.

“Mullach is Meg, today,” said Owd Hob, following Harry’s gaze. “She found a nice dress thrown out a week ago and changed her name. She was called Morgan before that.”

Owd Hob himself sat on his makeshift throne, squinting at the pair with old, rheumy eyes. He was an old wizened little thing, stick-thin arms hardly moving as he let out deep rattling breaths, his chest rising in little bursts of air. He reminded Harry vaguely of one of the puppet-creatures Dudley used to watch in his old space films, the ones dressed in sackcloth with large ears and backwards speech.

When Harry was eight, the Dursleys had gone on a series of trips to National Trust properties, apparently under the impression that it was ‘the done thing to do’. They had visited old, crumbling castles like Canterville Chase or Nightmare Abbey, and well-kept Georgian houses such as Pemberley and Thornfield Hall. His uncle had raced through the tours, sneering at the stewards and upturning priceless cases. Dudley had hated the whole experience, whining for ice cream and running amok through the old halls, but Harry had found something special about those old houses. There was a sense of history amongst the ancient winding battlements, the weight of hundreds of lives- earls and lords but their servants too- forming a steady pressure against Harry’s head. Something very similar tinged the air around Owd Hob, and Harry could see the years weighing down on his wrinkled little frame.

“Owd Hob,” tried Hermione, her received Oxford pronunciation struggling around the Lancashire syllables. “We have come to ask you about the plight of the House-Elves.”

Owd Hob shuffled forward, craning his bony head towards the bushy-haired girl. “The plight, hmmm? And what interest do you have in House-Elves?”

Hermione seemed off-put at this sharp interrogation, and her hand drifted to Harry’s in support. “We have established a society these past few weeks- the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, working title, S.P.E.W. for short- and we-- well, we wanted to ask----”

“Do you want freedom?” finished Harry. Hermione squeezed his hand in gratitude. “Are you-- are House-Elves, rather- happy with the status quo?”

There came, slowly at first but growing louder and louder, a cacophony of wheezes, cracks, and bellows that Harry eventually realised was laughter. Big-Ears was giving a deep guffaw, Meg Mullach a melodious titter, and Owd Hob a sickly wheeze.

“Foolish!” cackled the Owd Hob. “House-Elves are always happy! They must be! It is very much a necessity. If House-Elves are not happy, then they are no longer House-Elves.”

Meg Mullach took over, looking distantly into the middle distance. “Imagine having the bitterness and anger of a serving job take over you. Imagine forgetting the warmth of household tasks, rejecting the friendship of those around you, in favour of bitterness and hatred. Using the knowledge of a wizard’s requirements and needs against them, gazing into their hearts and tearing out their fears. No, they aren’t House-Elves after that. They’re boggarts.”

Harry gasped as memories of his third year flowed over him. Hermione thought of what she had read of obscurial cases in the ‘20s, of human bodies broken into terrible horrors. 

Owd Hob resumed the conversational thread. “Yes, House-Elves gone to the bad become boggarts, dismal dark shadowy creatures with barely any sentience beyond rage. An Elf of the MacDevon family now lurks in the empty Castle Keep as a boggart; many more live in the treacle mines of Lancashire, scaring foolhardy travellers. So I turn the question on you. With such a fate weighing on our minds, do you think we want freedom?”

Harry thought. 

Harry thought about when he first came to Hogwarts, when he first found out that magic was real, on his eleventh birthday. He remembered the goblins of Gringotts, the large piles of money and galleons. But that was not what made him happy. What made him happy was the recognition, when Hagrid looked at him, and said, _I see you. I know who you are, and I love you for it._

Money was an insult, really. What did House Elves need with money? What did they need with clothes? 

“I think,” said Harry, placing his words together carefully, “that what you need is recognition. Not money, not capitalism, but--- a place at the table. A family. To be seen not as a servant, an outsider, but as a part of the household. You’re House-Elves; you want to be inside the House, rather than outside.”

Owd Hob stroked his wrinkled chin with a finger, and then gave a chuckle that sounded like coals crackling in the hearth on a winter’s day.

“I think, young man, that this is remarkably correct. Quite close to the mark. We’ve been waiting a long time for someone like you two.”

Hermione beamed, and then swung to McGonagall.

“Professor? Can we?”

McGonagall, in the glow of the cave, no longer looked like the stern professor that Harry knew, but seemed to be lit by the inner fire that possessed Harry and Hermione.

“I’ll see what we can do,” she said. 

* * *

It was the day of the First Task. A group of dragon tamers were corralling several of the creatures into the stadium, led by Bill Weasley (who Harry recognised) and Zubeida Ghalib (who he didn’t). Rita Skeeter, ever-conscious of a possible scoop, was interviewing a taciturn Viktor Krum. Despite the knowledge that he was going to have to shortly fight a large fire-breathing lizard, Harry Potter’s mind was not on the Task at all. Instead, he was searching the crowd for a familiar face. He eventually spotted her, as ever, arranging last-minute plans with a House-Elf, who nodded and disappeared with a flash. There was something big planned for today, and it had nothing to do with dragons.

Harry saw a Ministry official, the somewhat obsequious Ludo Bagman, approach him, ducking and bowing like a medieval courtier. He smiled to herself. _Showtime._

“Mr Potter!” smarmed Bagman. “So nice to see you, really, so nice. I’m Bagman, Mr Ludo Bagman, at your service. Lovely day! For a Task, I mean! Not afraid are you, hmm? Not Mr Potter?”

“I’m not worried, no,” replied Harry.

“Of course not, of course not, not you. If you are, of course, I can offer some assistance, some advice….?”

“No advice is necessary,” said Harry. He looked around; they had drawn quite an audience, with some others hovering on the periphery. Lord Darcy, who had a sizable vote in the Wizengamot, he recognised, as well as Head of the DMLE Amelia Bones. He didn’t recognise anyone else, but they had sufficiently large waistbands to tell him that they were politically important. He tried to remember the talking points that Hermione had drilled him with.

“Are you aware of the Fountain of Magical Brethren, Mr Bagman? In the atrium of the Ministry of Magic?”

There was a curl of interest at the non sequitur. People drifted closer.

Bagman looked baffled. “The fountain? What do you----”

“It is supposed to signal equality between the races,” continued Harry. “And yet the centaur, goblin, and House-Elf in it are in positions of deference and servility to the witch and wizard. Rather makes you think, doesn’t it?”

Bagman swallowed, trying to get the conversation back on track. “Where is your family, Mr Potter?” he said, looking around as if he expected a throng of black-haired bespectacled adults to appear out of nowhere.

Harry smiled, and pointed. “Oh, my family? Right over there.”

There, sitting in the special seats reserved for the family of the contestants, was Dobby the House-Elf, wearing some of the socks Harry had given him over the years. Seeing the attention, he gave the pair a joyful wave.

Bagman swallowed painfully. “This is most unusual, Mr Potter. A breach of protocol at least.”

“Not so,” said Harry. “Dobby has been adopted into my house. He’s called Dobby Potter, now, unless he wants to change that name at a later date.”

“Is there a problem, Mister Bagman?” said Hermione, slotting herself beside Harry, the ever-present support. Together, they formed a united front, a fact that the congregating political movers and shakers were quick to realise. 

Bagman shook his head rapidly as he looked around at the Quidditch stands. He realised what smarter heads such as Amelia Bones- who swam in the waters of change- had known for a while; there were elves _everywhere._ Interspersed amongst the crowd, eating the food and engaging in conversation, were the House-Elves. Some were perched on stacks of library books; others were standing on the benches, craning over to look at the other students. Winky was tearfully sharing anecdotes with Susan Bones of Hufflepuff, while a ring of fascinated Ravenclaws had surrounded Merodach. Fima Ostroumova and Rüdiger von Schlotterstein were warmly congratulating a small family of younger House-Elves, and Hop, Skip and Jump were gleefully darting around, taking bites of food and getting lost in conversation. The House-Elves had a place at the table; the status quo had begun its slow crumbling into dust. 

“No problem at all,” murmured Bagman, looking quite alarmed. “Can I ask--- did you do this?”

The two students smiled. “No,” said Hermione. “We did this.”

Hermione looked at Harry, her gaze skipping down to his mouth. Neither knew who moved first, but soon, they were in each other’s arms, their lips fastened together. Their first kiss was sweet and full of promise, of hope for the future. It tasted of marmalade and raspberry jam. There, just before the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament, as two friends embraced and House-Elves dined with humans, a new and different future was written. This, too, was a new beginning; and sometimes, beginnings are the best things of all. 

They broke apart, leaning together, foreheads touching.

“Now, wish me luck,” said Harry, eyes glittering. “I’ve got a dragon to slay.”

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this is pulled from folklore, particularly from the Lancashire area, with references to the Brothers Grimm, Enid Blyton, and Roald Dahl sprinkled in for flavour. Anathema Device is, of course, from Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's 'Good Omens'. Who knows where all that weird Tarot stuff came from.


End file.
